The theory of everything

This “Winnie the Pooh” fan theory is really dark

Fan theories are always either super exciting or super upsetting — there is no middle ground — and this ‘Winnie the Pooh doesn’t exist’ conspiracy theory is definitely the latter. While obviously he doesn’t exist in the sense that he’s a fictional character, this fan theory circulating goes a step further and posits that all of the characters of the classic stories by A.A. Milne are actually figments of Christopher Robin’s imagination, and what’s more…they all represent different types or facets of mental illness. We’re never sure whether we’re super into conspiracy theories that make childhood faves dark and twisty, or if we really, really dislike them.

It all started with a study published in Canada that pointed out that all of the character exhibit certain traits of psychological conditions, and of course Twitter picked it up.

In this interpretation of the childhood fav, all of Christopher Robin’s imaginary friends personify different aspects of his mental health. We kind of like the idea of turning something that makes your life difficult into cute, cuddly animals that help you solve problems, but we’re also sort of like…can’t they just be cute, cuddly animals?

Still, we definitely see where this theory came from, and have to give it to the folks who devised it — it’s definitely creative, and honestly a whole lot less unsettling than that theory that all of the babies on Rugrats were dead, or whatever. But we still prefer to think that Christopher Robin had REAL talking animal friends he spent his time with, because that sounds a lot less crazy…erm, we think.